Simon Kaschock-Marenda found a new, safer-to-use insecticide by testing sweeteners on flies

By Bethany Brookshire, 14:57 PM June 4, 2014

Sometimes finding a science fair project is as simple as looking around the breakfast table. That’s what sixth-grader Simon Kaschock-Marenda did. He noticed what members of his family had been using to sweeten their drinks. “My grandmother, my mom and my dad were all using different sweeteners,” recalls Simon, now 14 and a rising sophmore at the Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School in Philadelphia. “I decided to test to make sure all the options were healthy.”